The population in most northeast Indiana counties, topped by Allen County, continued to grow this decade, according to recent census estimates.
Allen County has grown an estimated 4 percent to 370,404 since 2010, adding more than 14,000 people. Most of that change came naturally from more births than deaths, not from people moving in.
The only northeast Indiana county to lose people was Huntington County, which declined 2 percent this decade to an estimated 36,400. Births were not enough to offset more than 800 people who left the county.
The population count came before the county's largest employer, United Technologies Electronic Controls, began last month to lay off more than 700 employees as it shifts production to Mexico.
Huntington, like all other northeast Indiana counties, is working on “how do we grow as a region?” said city of Huntington Mayor Books Fetters. County commissioners, schools, real estate developers, “we just keep working to make Huntington the most workable, desirable community people would like to call home.”
“It's that Rust Belt, aging population that I think everyone deals with here in northeast Indiana,” Fetters added.
Noble, Steuben and Whitley counties showed no change in population.